Seth Rogan & James Franco Round 3

With an average of 55 million photos uploaded to Instagram every day, Art director Thomas Julian was inspired by the abundance of images, leading him to compile 852 images from 852 different Instagrammers, creating a stop motion video taking viewers around the world.

Julian explains “Instagram is an incredible resource for all kinds of images. I wanted to create structure out of this chaos. The result is a crowd sourced short-film that shows the endless possibilities of social media.”

Take a look at the short film and discover how many people all across the globe take similar pictures – from iconic landmarks such as the Sydney Opera House and Arc de Triomphe to everyday occurrences such as a sunset and a set of traffic lights.

In a novel twist on the classic testimonial video, Royal Rhodes University in British Columbia, Canada, have placed actual members of their Alumni inside interactive booths around local shopping centers.

As community members approach the booth and click on the “Connect” button, a secret door slides open, suddenly placing them face to face with an actual Alumni member, who is then able to have a conversation about their time and experience at the university.

App of the week

If you’re a designer, artist or general lover of colour, SwatchMate Cube is the tool and app to look out for. Currently campaigning on Kickstarter, SwatchMate Cube aims to accurately record the colours experienced in day-to-day life, so they can be used effectively for creative purposes when beamed to your smartphone or computer.

SwatchMate contains a light source and colour sensor, and has a small sample hole through which to capture colour. A controlled sequence of light is shone on the surface, before being redirected back into the sphere toward the colour sensor. This makes for a more accurate method than photographing inspiring colours with an iPhone, where lighting conditions and megapixels can distort brilliance.

British Airways have launched their new “Lookup” campaign, designed to remind people how magical flying can be, especially through the eyes of children.

Using some pretty advanced custom-built surveillance technology, a series of digital billboards in London’s Picadilly circus and Chiswick detect planes flying overhead. The digital display on the billboard then shows a child pointing to the ACTUAL British Airways plane as it travels overhead.

As the child continues to follow the real-world plane across the sky, the billboard lists the flight number and where the plane has travelled from – followed by a small boast that BA offer “More flights to more destinations”.

A simple yet effective way to show in real-time how accessible the world can be.

Video of the week

Website of the week

Drawing inspiration from the upcoming film “The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug”, the latest Google Chrome Experiment is a fantastic example of the power of new and emerging web technologies.

A Journey Through Middle-Earth takes you on an interactive experience through some of the key locations, characters and story pieces that make up The Hobbit universe from J. R. R. Tolkien. What makes this Chrome Experiment interesting is that a “mobile first” approach was taken in producing and delivering content – the full experience runs as well on mobile devices as it does on desktop.

An interactive map plays a central role to the story, built purely using HTML, CSS and Javascript – WebAudio, WebGL and ThreeJS help drive the audio and 3D experience, while user-explorative interaction and cutscenes throughout drive the user to dive deeper into the fantasy world to find out more.

Imagine one card that stores all your cards, holding unlimited credit cards, debit cards and gift cards. A startup based in San Francisco has created a card called Coin, that can do exactly this.

This week, the team behind Coin opened its website for preorders as part of a crowdfunding campaign to raise $50,0000. The Coin card is available for US$50 and expected to be delivered by US Summer 2014. The card is estimated to last two years on a single charge. After the funding round, the device will sell for $100.

Users load a card by taking a photo of it, swiping it through Coin’s headphone jack dongle, and toggling it on and off as required. Then, when you want to use a card, you turn the device on and cycle through to the desired card. Coin holds 8 cards for immediate use, but cards can be swapped out in a matter of seconds.

Security has also been addressed as Coin has encryption built into the server, mobile app and on the card which will communicate with your smartphone if you leave it behind. If Coin loses contact with your phone for a certain period of time, it will deactivate itself. It will be interesting to see how the technology is adopted, but it sounds like a winner.

For the environmentally conscious, here is a great idea to add extra value to your gift giving this Christmas.

Eden’s Paper has created a 100% plantable wrapping paper. The wrapping paper is embedded with five different types of seeds including carrot, tomato, broccoli, chilli and onion, so will be a gift that keeps on giving.

It is completely earth-friendly as it is made from 100% recyclable paper, uses vegetable-based ink for the colourful designs and does not contain any glues.You can pick up a roll of your favourite wrapping paper from £5 ($8.10) on Kickstarter.